When people sit in recliner chairs, as in other chairs, some sit up and others slouch, some are long-legged and others are relatively shorter from foot-sole to knee or from knee to hip.
Recliner chairs which are internally structurally identical, even to use of identical recliner mechanisms (i.e. the chair "hardware"), may be upholstered in very different styles, with differing seat cushion-to-floor distances.
FIGS. 1, 2 and 3 are schematic views illustrating what impact the foregoing may have upon a rocker recliner chair user. In each of these figures, a stick figure representing a person is shown seated in a recliner chair which is in a fully reclined position, with its legrest fully extended.
FIG. 2 shows the ideal condition, where the combination of chair design, hardware and upholstery and the user's stature and posture is such that the fully projected legrest L has an angle .alpha. of its support surface for the backs of the legs of the chair user where they are supported on the legrest L, which fully matches the comparable angle .beta. at which the backs of the user's legs extend relative to his or her knees. In this ideal situation the user is not discomforted at any place on the backs of his or her legs where they rest on the legrest, because the contact pressure on each leg is spread out over a relatively large leg back/legrest area extending from the upper, rear edge to the lower, forward edge of the legrest.
FIG. 1, in contrast illustrates how the legrest L may press its upper rear edge portion discomfortingly against the leg backs of a user who is relatively shorter or is sitting-up relatively straighter than the idealized average person for whom the manufacturer built the chair. Here is a mis-match, the legrest support surface angle .alpha. is greater than the natural leg angle .beta..
FIG. 3 illustrates how at the other extreme the legrest L may press its lower, forward edge portion discomfortingly against the leg backs of a user who is relatively taller or is slouching relatively more than the idealized average person for whom the manufacturer built the chair.
The problem illustrated by FIGS. 1 and 3 is only existant in the usual recliner chair when the legrest is fully or substantially fully projected, since, up until that point, a mis-match between user and legrest can be overcome by projecting or retracting the legrest somewhat until a comfortable matching angle .alpha..congruent..beta. is achieved. (In the usual recliner chair, the angle .alpha. progressively changes from generally vertical to generally horizontal with progressive projection of the legrest from the fully retracted condition.)
In short, the typical prior art recliner chair has had its projected legrest angle of disposition set for comfort for only a selected swath of the full range of potential users. This has cost lost sales, where the person the legrest did not fit is the shopper. And it has reduced the number of people who would frequently use and enjoy the recliner chair in any particular home. From a manufacturer's viewpoint, the fact that a chair is not used as much as it might be is detrimental, because it pushes-off further into the future the day that the chair will wear out and need to be replaced.
A prior art solution which has not found wide acceptance is to pivotally mount the left and right ends of the legrest to the left and right legrest projecting/retracting linkages of the recliner chair mechanisms, so that at all times the legrest may be angularly adjusted. There are several reasons for the failure of this technique as a general solution: Legrest pivotability is undesirable as the legrest is being retracted, since, especially with legrests with rearwardly projecting wings, for T-cushion upholstered chairs, the wings of a tilted-up legrest could jam against the floor preventing full retraction. After a chair had been broken-in through usage, the legrest could refuse to stay put when fully retracted, and adopt a frowning look. Recliner mechanisms generally are worked-out to go smoothly through their motions, and when the legrest suddenly becomes free to tilt or suddenly is forced, e.g by banging against the floor, to assume a different angle, the abrupt change in the "feel" of the movement is discomforting to the average user.